June 18, 2026
U.S. Funding Science Radicalism
Timothy Birdnow
Here is just one example of how our government continues to fund leftist causes, especially climate alarmism.
The supposed "gold standard" of science advice to the country's leadership is riddled with all sorts of radical activism.
Much of what they are funding is aimed at children, I might add, and will turn our kids into radicals and socialists and the Gang Green.
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Retail Sales Up
Timothy Birdnow
Well, well, well...
So retail sales are up. Where is this "terrible economy" they keep telling us about?
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Nothing Will Change
Timothy Birdnow
It doesn't matter.
While we don't want American taxpayer funds wasted what is at issue is rebuilding Iran under the Mullahs. All we are doing is Making Iran Great Again and ultimately a lot of taxpayer money will wind up funding this anyway. Let them rebuild and they will rebuild their military capabilities. There will be no strings attached to this money and even if there is nothing will stop Iran.
After the fall of the Soviet Union the Clinton Administration was very worried about the old Soviet nuclear arsenal. So Clinton started a number of programs to keep nukes from leaving Russia. For instance, he paid to keep the old nuclear cities - the places where nuclear scientists worked to enrich uranium and make plutonium - operating. Yes, operating so the scientists wouldn't go to some Third World country and give them atomic weapons. The end result was Russia had all this nuclear material and nothing to do with it but make more bombs.
Meanwhile Clinton paid to destroy the old Soviet arsenal. The Ukrainians agreed to give up their portion of said arsenal (thus making them vulnerable to Russian attack) and so did Russia. But the agreement did nothing to prevent anyone from building a new arsenal, and Putin had all this enriched uranium at his disposal. The end result was Russia built a newer, far more advanced nuclear arsenal, larger and more modern than the U.S.
See, we gave Putin the ability to build those weapons by funding the Russians, paying them for their goo intentions.
If we give Iran money no matter the source we allow them to fund whatever they like, even if there are strings attached (because it will free up other money from other sources). Money is fungible and always has been.
I suspect Trump sees this as a kind of American version of China's Belt and Roadway policy in which we retain control of the money and can set terms. But it just won't work that with with this bunch who see everything through the prism of the 12th Imam.
Sadly our policy with Iran should have been much like Rome's policy towards Carthage. Maybe we wouldn't sow salt in the Earth but we should have tried to break the country economically. And maybe we SHOULD just break the country up; it is an empire after all, ruled by the Persians who dominate the minority races such as the Medes or Kurds or whatnot. But we are leaving Iran intact and giving her the money it needs to rebuild her weapons stockpiles. This is foolish.
I trust Trump to try to do the right thing, but I fear he just can't conceive of the kind of fanaticism he's dealing with here and he doesn't grasp that you can't make binding agreements with people like the Mullahs.
But then I've long said Trump won't solve the situation - he can't. My thinking comes from the Bible and the Bible makes it clear Iran will be a major player in the Great Tribulation and that Armageddon will include them. The King of the East doesn't march through Siberia, after all.
Trump may get the best we can do, which is a couple of decades of relative peace. But I think we should have crippled Iran economically. I hate to do that but sometimes there is no other option and a prosperous Iran is a more dangerous Iran.
And I assure you that the matter of Lebanon and Hezbollah will read it's ugly head again soon, breaching the deal and Iran will renege on the deal as soon as Israel launches a counter-attack on the Iranian proxy.
So nothing changes. It was a valiant try but in the end this region is unreformable by any but the Most High.
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GOP Attacks Lee Over SAVE America Act
Timothy Birdnow
Why are Republicans so opposed to passing the SAVE America Act?
This includes Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a darling of the conservative base (including me).
Rachel Bovard
@rachelbovard
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Using the conference lunch to go after the one guy asking them to please do something the country cares about, for a change, and then smugly leaking their outright contempt for the GOP base — and for the president! — to the campus regime scribes.
Why is the GOP so terrified to even push the Democrats to do a talking filibuster? The American People are on board with this by huge margins (over eighty percent) and yet the GOP refuses to even put the Democrats on record with this. Why?
Yes, the Republicans are beholden to the Chamber of Commerce and others who want cheap labor at any cost, but is that enough to make them risk losing the election? I suspect there is more at work than just campaign dollars.
We must systematically remove these Quislings if we are going to save America.
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Two Americas: Black Rednecks and Karmelo Anthony and Civilization
When thinking about poor Austin Metcalf, I sometimes wonder about his reactions during those last fatal moments on April 2 of last year. When murderer Karmelo Anthony drew that knife, could he not, being young and athletic, have avoided at least a deadly strike? Perhaps Anthony was just too quick. But then I realize something:
The two boys were from vastly different worlds.
Austin occupied the world most of us inhabit. It’s a place where, among other things, proportionate force is instinctively understood. Sure, boys and men, being boys and men, will sometimes have physical conflict, and we understand that part of manliness is standing up for yourself. But we also reflexively know that a shove is to be met with a shove, a swing with a swing. This norm, reflected in Queensberry rules, is necessary for preservation of life and civilization.
Anthony’s world is clearly different. Egos are as big there as virtue is small; touchy and prideful to the hilt, the instinct can be that if you feel "dissed,” you can smoke the other guy. This is why it isn’t unusual hearing about ghetto altercations in which an "offended” party departs, returns with a gun and shoots multiple people. It’s why so many rappers (e.g., Tupac) suffer violent deaths.
So Austin, perhaps poorly acquainted with this world, might understandably have been completely shocked at the drawing of a knife amidst an adolescent locking of horns. It’s not something civilized people may expect. (Perhaps such warnings should be in an updated version of "The Talk: Nonblack Version” — the article that got commentator John Derbyshire canceled.)
Whatever the case, Anthony’s world is reflected in his reprobate supporters, too. Out protesting and uber-emotional, they generally speak as if a shove among youths can warrant deadly action. Yet they don’t just reject proportionate force, a foundational principle in Western law and something operative in all 50 states.
Such people also reject the other laws, rules, social codes, traditions, and customs of the wider and polite society. They’re self-righteous about it now, too, because they identify such limitations as "white.” (Even punctuality has been called a "white norm.”)
Make no mistake, however. Someone rejecting proportionate force and civilization's strictures generally is described in one obvious way.
Uncivilized.
You could also call such a person a barbarian (a word we should make fashionable again).
Or you could call them, as the great Professor Thomas Sowell has, "black rednecks.”
As Sowell pointed out in his 2005 book Black Rednecks and White Liberals, what’s now called "black culture” is largely just appropriated redneck culture. You can, too, trace its roots back 500 years to England, and even then such people were called "rednecks” and "crackers,” the professor noted.
Thus is it no coincidence that redneck and "black” culture share similarities beyond the obvious speech patterns. Just a few that Sowell noted are: aversion to steady work and lack of entrepreneurship; neglect of education and anti-intellectualism; sexual promiscuity and degraded family norms; and, relating to killer Karmelo, proneness to violence and pride-induced touchiness.
Whatever you call it, however, something’s for certain: "Black culture” has got to go.
More and more people of all races are realizing this, including an increasing number of black Americans. Commentator and podcaster Jason Whitlock says that ghetto-mentality blacks should be given the AIR option: assimilation, incarceration or reservation (that is, American-Indian style. Note: I don’t believe in creating more reservations.) And the young black woman here is so disgusted with redneck-black culture that she uses the n-word to identify those epitomizing it.
It’s these people’s desire that the black community shed this black-redneck culture, just as white southerners did ages ago with white-redneck culture. But this hasn’t happened and won’t anytime soon—and this is for good reason.
White redneck culture mostly disappeared because we didn’t exalt it. We didn’t put white rednecks in entertainment, singing stupid, decadent "songs” and getting filthy rich in the process. We didn’t portray their sub-culture as cool and desirable. We didn’t claim that because it was "their” culture, we had to respect it. We didn’t give their style of speech a respectable name and blather on about how language norms are just social constructs, anyway. We didn’t witness them give their kids inane names, as if the child is a new pet ferret, and then wink at their "creativity.” We didn’t recognize their own national anthem. We didn’t elevate "redneck pride” to ethnicity-like status so that maintaining it became a matter of perverse principle. And we wouldn’t have had one of its representatives co-host the Olympics.
Yet we do all this and more with black-redneck culture. We make the aforementioned rap disgorgers rich before someone makes them dead. Today you can monetize ghetto-rat status—and what you reward you get more of—though, of course, only a select few benefit materially. Virtually all are more likely to end up like Karmelo.
This is demonstrated daily, too. Activists wanted police wearing body-cams, and we all have video recording devices. The result: Endless footage reveals that blacks are rarely victims of non-blacks. What is common is to see black rednecks acting like barbarians. And this has all led to a "condition,” affecting all races, dubbed "black fatigue.”
This phenomenon is good, too, because getting fed up with a cultural norm is the first step toward changing it. And here’s what must happen to reform black ghetto culture (again, lamentably, I don’t expect this to occur anytime soon).
The greater mass of people must say, in no uncertain terms, that if you embrace this culture, we’ll have nothing to do with you. We won’t do business with you or hire you; you’ll be scorned and ostracized. Leverage is necessary to this end, and thus should anti-discrimination law be rescinded. (I’ve advocated this for decades for other reasons; e.g., such law violates freedom of association and invites government tyranny.)
Just as significantly, we must shed the affirmative-action mentality. This means that in response to studies showing that people with "black” names are less likely to get job-interview callbacks, our only response will be, "So what?” When parents name their child De’Quan, La’Teesha—or Karmelo—that screams out, "My mission in life is to oppose ‘white’ [read: mainstream] culture.” And they almost invariably transmit this hang-up to their kids; hence the profiling.
We’re also not going to worry about racial disparities in academics, income and general accomplishment. (These exist between whites and Asian-descent Americans, too.) White rednecks didn’t fare so well in those areas, either.
Another prerequisite is purging ghetto culture from entertainment. To this end, we’d need a traditionalist version of the NAACP to arise and, along with other groups, pressure corporations to cease monetizing black-redneck culture. This is much as how the NAACP and allied entities successfully pressured CBS into canceling black sitcom Amos ’n’ Andy in the 1950s. The kicker, too, is that today’s rap-thug imagery reflects infinitely worse stereotyping than anything on that show. (In fact, Amos ’n’ Andy placed its goofy main characters inside a very well-functioning black world in Harlem, NYC.) I can only imagine how embarrassing some black Americans find it.
Simply put, society-wide disgust with ghetto culture must intensify. We must say, pull up your pants and pull out your ego by the roots. Shed the gold chains and mind chains of imagined oppression. Focus not on victimhood but virtue, not on race but righteousness, not on taxpayer-handouts but Truth, not on gripes but God. You, black-redneck culture, are a dinosaur, and that asteroid with your name on it has finally struck.
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Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Gun Case
Timothy Birdnow
More proof we can't count on SCOTUS to fight our battles.
The Supreme Court refused to hear a case litigated by Letitia James over New York State overreach in the Governor signing an Executive Order allowing people to sue gun makers using "nusisance laws". It waw an end run around Court rulings that do not allow such litigation. By not hearing the case the Supreme Court lets a lower ruling stand.
FTA:
The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) Monday, allowing an appeals court’s ruling in favor of Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James to stand.
Then-Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law intended to allow "public nuisance” litigation against firearms manufacturers in 2021 as a means to bypass the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 (PLCAA). NSSF expressed disappointment with the news the Supreme Court would not hear the case, which it brought in December 2021 as part of a pre-enforcement challenge, according to court documents.
First, someone should litigate Andrew Cuomo and Letitia James as public nuisances.
Second, the Court is clearly leaving this open to another challenge. It stands with their policy though; this was a "pre-litigation" challenge and there was no actual plaintiff who had been harmed as of yet. So the Courtt can hear this again in time.
I suspect this isn't the end of it. Let us hope not.
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The Flawed Iran Deal
Timothy Birdnow
Here is the memorandum of understanding that forms the framework for a peace deal with Iran:
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.
Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States Lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.
Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.
The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, While ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.
The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.
The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran's nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.
The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.
The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.
Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.
The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council
Right off the bat this thing is flawed insofar as Iran will claim Hezbollah is not under their control and that they did not break the deal when Hez Angels launches a new round of attacks on Israel - and they will say WE broke the treaty when Israel hits back.
The fourth point requires us to withdraw all forces from the region within 30 days of the end of the blockade too, which means we have to be out of the Persian Gulf and possibly out of the Arabian sea as well. What is to stop Iran from hostile action at that point?
Point six says we give Iran $300 billion for reconstruction. So we ARE bribing Iran, as did the Obama Administration before us. This is over twice as much as Mr. Obama sent them.
We should not give Iran any money at all to settle this. If we do the Iranian government will crow about us being forced to pay reparations, and thus claim victory over us.
Frankly, I think we should have just walked away and left this as a problem for the Europeans to deal with if Mr. Trump did not want to resume the attack. We have lots of oil of our own.
Point eight says that the "status quo" will be maintained on nuclear weapons programs. After saying Iran would not attempt to obtain a nuclear weapon in point seven they turn around and say this. The status quo was Iran enriching uranium and working towards missile systems to deliver such a deadly payload.
The last point says there will be a "binding agreement" with the U.N. as guarantor. Fat chance any of that will matter to Iran or the U.N.
This doesn't sound like a very good deal to me.
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Opposites Attract
Timothy Birdnow
Look at her; she's definitely your last call kind of gal:
New York Post
@nypost
SPLC boss funneled $1.2 million to lover in neo-Nazi group - pair even had joint bank account trib.al/7wnuofS
So she was willing to take up with a neo-Nazi racist and gave him money to fund der Fatherland. What did they have to talk about? I guess she was content not to talk but rather to take a little goosestepping from whatever man she could find.
They say opposites attract, but this is ridiculous!
Deplorable Bloggers Alliance adds:
Based on the details in the June 2 superseding indictment, "Employee-2” is believed to be Heidi Beirich, a 58-year-old fascism expert who was the director of intelligence at the Alabama-based anti-extremism nonprofit between 2012 and 2019.
The indictment alleges Beirich was very close to the informant known only as "F-9” who "infiltrated the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance.” "[Beirich] was also in a romantic relationship with F-9.
During this relationship, [Beirich] and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts,” the indictment alleges. "Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000 in donors’ money flowed from the SPLC operating account … and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and [Beirich].
"This amounted to approximately 66% of all money ever deposited into their joint bank accounts. [Beirich] then used donors’ money to pay the couple’s personal living expenses.”
The indictment also claims that while getting paid by the SPLC, the unnamed informant was also raising money for the National Alliance and helping to "carry out its extremist activities.”
The indictment describes how a source broke into National Alliance’s headquarters in West Virginia in 2014 and "stole approximately 25 boxes of documents,” took them over state lines into North Carolina and copied them, before returning the originals.
In 2015, Beirich wrote an article allegedly based on the stolen materials for her group’s "Hatewatch” section of its website. That article, "Chaos at the Compound,” is still available.
The indictment then describes how the SPLC tried to cover up who their informant was by paying a second informant "approximately $6,000” to take responsibility for the burglary. Beirich and SPLC did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
"I knew it was that fat, ugly hog Heidi Beirich,” National Alliance chairman William White Williams, 78, told The Post from his home in east Tennessee. He also confirmed the details of the indictment match what happened to the group.
"I think some of those cluckers wanted to get out of the movement and they went to the SPLC for help. But instead of helping them, [the SPLC] said, ‘Why don’t you stay in and get paid?'” he added of the informants.
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VDH on Why Trump's Strategy is Correct
Timothy Birdnow
The great Victor Davis Hansen defends the Iran deal and the President's approach in Iran on a Daily Signal podcast.
He makes the point that we have created a vast alliance system with the Arab states in the region, many of whom are cooperating with the Israelis, and that we are creating an enforceable ban on nuclear weapons with Iran, unlike the prior arrangement. He points out Iran was at the peak of it's power when Obama negotiated the previous deal but now Trump is negotiating from a position of great strength as Iran is largely done militarily.
Personally I believe Trump stopped bombing too early and did not take out the key Gulf installations that serve Iran's power. But I'm not privy to Mr. Trump's information nor do I know the plans he has in total. I'm willing to trust him, but I sure hope he knows what he is doing. He usually does.
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June 17, 2026
They Don't Know What They Don't Know
This from Richard Cronin
Immodestly, no other discipline touches on Thermodynamics as does Chemical Engineering. The treatise on Thermodynamics by Richard Feynman is a tour de force. He poked a pin in a lot of "Settled Science”.
"Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn't bother you any more.”
-- Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951)
Would that the typical Climatologist understood the fugacity of dissolved CO2 in ocean waters. At the great pressures and cold temperature in deep abyssal ocean waters, a vast amount of CO2 is dissolved.
The South Atlantic magnetic anomaly assures ample Ultraviolet radiation to heat the South Atlantic gyre. The counterclockwise current of the South Atlantic forms the only gyre that delivers heat towards the Equator.
Over the last several years, the mouth of the Amazon has swung from floods to drought and dolphins are dying due to the elevated water temperatures.
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Sommerfeld pretty well has it, and gets you to smile about it. Years ago as a layman, I read, and figured I had a decent grasp of, the First Law of Thermodynamics. I should have left well enough alone, but I decided to have a go at the dreaded Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is the one Sommerfeld was describing, and I saw why it's so feared. I decided to go back to Tinkertoys.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 17, 2026 11:12 PM (FpsZq)
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I hated thermodynamics (and the accompanying fluid flow) in Nuclear Power School, until at some point I had a breakthrough and realized it was all about mathematics, and from that point on I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Posted by: Bill H at June 17, 2026 11:24 PM (FRG6e)
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You are right Dana; the whole thing is baffling from a logical standpoint. That is why the climate people are so wrong so often; they don't understand thermodynamics at all but pretend they do.
Yeah Bill; it's like quantum physics in that regard - all about the math and not at all about what you can grasp on a visceral level. Fascinating subject.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 18, 2026 08:26 AM (oflqW)
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The Fed Biddles While America Burns
This has posted at American Thinker under the title
The Fed Plays Politics. My original title was much better.
Below is the original and I did not insert the hyperlinks as it went to AT. Enjoy!
The Fed Biddles While America Burns
Timothy Birdnow
In his July 4, 1832 veto of the renewal of the Second Bank of the United States President Andrew Jackson made these statements:
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-10-1832-bank-veto
To acknowledge its force is to admit that the bank ought to be perpetual, and as a consequence the present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with the Government.
[...]
Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? The president of the bank has told us that most of the State banks exist by its forbearance. Should its influence become concentered, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it; but if this monopoly were regularly renewed every fifteen or twenty years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to feel its influence.
end excerpt.
Now the Second Bank of the United States worked differently than the Federal Reserve and Jackson spent a good amount of time railing against the fact the BUS sold stock to foreign investors - something that cannot happen with the Federal Reserve which only sells to American banks - but his secondary point was absolutely correct; the bank was unaccountable to political pressures and had the power to influence and tamper with elections.
But Nicholas Biddle, the head of the Second Bank of the United States, refused to take the termination of his cash cow lying down. When Jackson removed U.S. funds from the bank he raised interest rates, and since other banks borrowed from the BUS that meant interest rates across the country rose. Farmers and manufacturers were squeezed. The economic damage done by this was called "Biddle's Panic".
Biddle was trying to hurt President Jackson politically by crashing the economy.
Which brings us to the matter at hand; the Federal Reserve has quietly been doing very similar things, undoubtedly to influence the upcoming midterm elections. For example it has been pumping up the money supply in an orgy of Qualitative Easing https://mises.org/mises-wire/money-supply-growth-2026-rises-multi-year-high-fed-pumps-new-qe See graph. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL and has up until now refused to cut interest rates, which would stimulate growth. Increased money means increased inflation and there is nothing at all Donald Trump can do about it. Unless the Feds change course - something they have signaled they would do at their meeting which is happening right now - inflation will continue. The war in Iran is being blamed but in reality it's the Feds who are causing this.
The Fed has signaled in the last quarter they might end QE but not cut interest rates - something Trump has hounded them to do for months but which they refuse to do out of concerns for inflation. But inflation is not caused by an "overheated economy" as the Keynsians at the Fed would have us believe, but rather by an increase in the money supply caused by the Fed itself, by and large. Yes, the war has triggered some price growth but that will be temporary. Sadly the real inflation we've seen is systemic and out of Trump's control - exactly as the Fed wanted it.
Inflation was one of the central issues that brought the Democrats down in the last election and I rather suspect Jerome Powell - who has been at war with President Trump since Trump's re-election - was pulling a Nicholas Biddle, trying to keep inflation rising so the Republicans take the blame for it and the Democrats win the mid-terms. With a hostile Congress Trump will be finished and so will all of his policies.
The public is still angry about inflation, and is now blaming Trump. Polls show that the Democrats enjoy a sizable lead over the Republicans on economic issues. 38% of respondents to an Emerson poll said the problems with the economy are the top issue of concern. That economy is being hurt by Federal Reserve inflationary policy and refusal to lower interest rates at a critical time.
This is NOT about unemployment, which is fairly low https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000 (and it only rose under Trump because he kicked the freeloaders off the dole and they suddenly had to find work, thus putting them in the job market) nor is it about low wages, which have risen along with inflation, if a tad less. It's inflation that makes everyone think the economy sucks. And it 's Jerome "Biddle" Powell and the board of the Fed who had been advocating the increase in money throughout a period of growth.
People vote their pocketbooks. the Fed - like Nicholas Biddle - knows that.
So don't expect inflation to drop any time soon, even with the end of the war and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.. Only a portion of the inflation (like fuel costs) will drop - the rest will remain high until the Fed reins in the money supply - something they are not going to do for Mr. Trump.
Jerome Powell may be gone as head of the Fed but he's refused to quit the board and I have little doubt he's going to continue to act as a shadow chairman and do everything he can to thwart the incoming Kevin Warsh. And we do not as yet know where Warsh stands on these issues. After all, Powell was appointed Chair of the Fed by Donald J. Trump after all. Warsh is an avowed inflation hawk, but his idea of HOW to fight inflation may well be the same tired Keynsianism that has worked so poorly over the years.
The Fed continues to Biddle and the nation may well burn for it.
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I've often thought we'd be much better off without the darn thing.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 17, 2026 11:14 PM (FpsZq)
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Me too. It was extra-constitutional and the Founders had a big fight over the First Bank of the United States as it was. That was Hamilton's idea.
There is nothing in the Constitution authorizing a central bank, nor allowing a private corporation to print money.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 18, 2026 08:18 AM (oflqW)
3
The constitution also does not forbid a central bank. That means that Congress is perfectly within its purview in creating it. Congress is not limited to what the constitution permits, it is merely constrained by what the constitution forbids. Not that I think they were wise.
Posted by: Bill H at June 18, 2026 09:04 AM (FRG6e)
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June 16, 2026
The Latest Planetary Emergency - The Continents are About to Crash Together
Timothy Birdnow
Of all the stupidest things I've ever seen on mainstream media!
There was only ONE continent in the distant past (Pangea) and it broke into the seven with which we are familiar now. Continents have never been as far apart as they are now and so naturally they are drifting back together and will probably reform into one supercontinent in the distant future.
And they may be closing in faster than before but millions to billions of years is hardly grounds for losing sleep.
I'm sure it's caused by human atmospheric emissions.
Anybody ever wonder if an increase in the shifting of the continents might, just might, be causing an increase in outgassing from the interior of the planet as a result of this increased movement? Just asking.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
04:47 PM
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I doubt that insurance companies will stop writing policies for construction of commercial and private buildings near oceans any time soon.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 17, 2026 12:34 AM (Vngxz)
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I'm good. The Pacific Ocean is wider than the Atlantic, so the East Coast will crash into Europe before China crashes into California. So I'm okay to just hang out a while longer.
Posted by: Bill H at June 17, 2026 07:46 AM (FRG6e)
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I imagine it will be a while before they stop handing out those policies Dana.
You should be good for a while Bill!
As for me I live in the middle of the country near an ancient mountain chain; I should be o.k. as long as the New Madrid fault doesn't let go.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 17, 2026 10:50 AM (oflqW)
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Tell ya what: if things get too dicey, let's the three of us find a nice cozy pub and have a few beers before the big continental crash. I'll buy the first round.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 17, 2026 11:17 PM (FpsZq)
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Sorry Dana, I've been sober for 44 years. I'm not going to throw that away just because some continents got silly.
Posted by: Bill H at June 17, 2026 11:27 PM (FRG6e)
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Count me in Dana! But let's make sure it's not some hipster bar; I don't want the poseurs around while we toast Ragnarok.
Bill I will happily buy you a soda if you like. We may as well be accomodating on doomsday after all.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 18, 2026 08:16 AM (oflqW)
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Post Office to Wreck Dems Vote Fraud Scheme
Timothy Birdnow
Here is how the Post Office may save American Democracy.
Yes, the USPS is wanting to implement new rules whereby the states have to hand over voter information along with mail-in ballots to guarantee these are legitimate - and a bar code will have to be put on the ballot to track it from the voter to the poll.
Needless to say the Democrats will go bananas over this.
Back in the seventies the Post Office was reorganized from a government agency (with the Postmaster General in line to be President) into a quasi-private corporation wholly owned by the United States government. It is, in theory, self-sustaining. It's going to be much harder for the Left to win this in court.
This should be fun!
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:41 PM
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Sounds like a good idea to me!
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 17, 2026 12:35 AM (Vngxz)
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Kind of leaning on a weak reed. The USPS needed a full five weeks to deliver a mailed check to a business five blocks from where I mailed it. In the past three months no fewer than five pieces which I know for certain were mailed to me, one of them certified, have never been delivered. This in central San Diego.
Posted by: Bill H at June 17, 2026 07:50 AM (FRG6e)
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It's still California Bill. How many hippies and Illegal aliens were handling your mail?
But you're right; it won't be the panacea the author of the article thinks it will be.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 17, 2026 10:53 AM (oflqW)
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Talapinko
Timothy Birdnow
Texas Senatorial candidate James Talarico is some piece of work.
That this guy is even remotely competitive in the Lone Star State is only a coefficient of the power the leftist media can exert. If the media reported on him fairly the guy would lose by double digits.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:49 AM
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Posted by: Surya kiran at June 18, 2026 04:15 AM (h3/op)
Posted by: chanchal rani at June 18, 2026 06:17 AM (JEO7Y)
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MLB Angry at Giants Players Who Refused to Wear Rainbow Caps for Pride Day, Put up Bible Passages
Timothy Birdnow
Several Christian members of the San Francisco Giants wrote Bible versus on their Pride Month hats in protest against the honoring of sodomy by Major League Baseball, and they
have been punished by the League for their faith. One player simply refused to wear the gay gear hat, using the standard hats used in regular season play.
From the article:
"The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations,” the MLB said in a statement, according to The New York Times.
Giants right-hander Landen Roupp had "Gen 9:12-16” on his cap as he started the game, during which the Giants lost 6-1 to the Chicago Cubs.
Relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker wore Bible verses on their hats as well. Relief pitcher Sam Hentges wore a standard Giants cap when he was called upon instead of the "pride” hat.
As noted by NBC, the verse Roupp highlighted says: "And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.’”
The League was not amused, especially since this flipped the script on the meaning of a rainbow.
The Giants issued the following statement:
"The San Francisco Giants are proud to support Pride Night and the LGBTQ+ community. Baseball should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued. We also respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations,
We understand that the choices by individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that. Those choices do not change our organization’s commitment to inclusion, belonging, and creating a welcoming environment for all. We remain grateful to our fans, partners, employees, players, and coaches who help make Pride Night a meaningful celebration,”
A "welcoming environment for all" would be a sex-neutral experience, not a celebration of homosexuality. How do the average folks feel about "Pride Day"? Imagine if they had a day for Nazis to feel good about themselves and made the team wear swastikas and lightning bolt SS insignia? Far easier to leave sexuality out of the game just as you would leave political or social issues out of it.
And if the gay community doesn't like this that is just tough; you can't make everyone happy. These Christians did not put the passages from the Bible condemning homosexuality on their hats, after all. They could have done THAT but didn't. They were every bit as inclusive.
These are not just homosexuals but atheist homosexuals, ones who are angry at God for sundry reasons.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:37 AM
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June 15, 2026
Democrat Bum of the Month Club
Timothy Birdnow
Yes, word salad sally, the woman who couldn't put five words together, is leading the pack.
That's how weak the Democratic bench is these days.
Of course it's very early; someone may emerge who can win for the Democratic Socialist Party. But it ain't looking good and we have great people on our side - J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and a host of others.
The Camel sits at 27% while her nearest rival - Gavin "Vidal Sassoon" Newsom comes in at 14%.
Of course Kamala checks all the boxes for a liberal candidate and she comes across as not as crazy as, say, Crazy Eyes Ocasio-Cortez, so the Dems are willing to take another shot with her. (Occluded Cortex comes in at 6%).
Pete Butigiege, the transportation secretary who seemed to have nothing to do with transportation and on whose watch we saw multiple train derailments as well as aircraft disasters- zoomed in at 11%.
The Democrats have nobody who appeals to middle America even to the liy have run who won showed up since beral laborites in middle America. And they are running out of ways to fool the public.
Don't expect any of these people to wind up the nominee; the nominee will be a dark horse, someone coming out of nowhere so they can claim he's a new Democrat. That's how every guy they have run since Bill Clinton.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:27 PM
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Of course, there's always their new heartthrob Graham Platner, the dude with the covered-up Nazi tattoo and the trail of abused women. His appeal is that he's cute, in a way -- the same thing that Zohran Mamdani has going for him. Makes you wish we'd never given women the vote -- or at least liberal women.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 16, 2026 12:08 AM (Vngxz)
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Jim Jones of Jonestown could run even after killing all those people duped by his vision and as long as his name came with a D before it dems would vote for him.
Posted by: Mike at June 16, 2026 01:03 AM (+xDJP)
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I agree with Mike here; they'd vote for Satan himself with horns and a pitchfork if he had a D behind his name.
Graham Platner is the kind of guy you'd find in a bar, too drunk to speak coherently and spouting crazy opinions. I've \met his type in many a roadhouse.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 16, 2026 08:52 AM (oflqW)
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Mike's right, of course. And I'm sure you've run afoul of guys like this Tim, as you say -- and I'm equally sure you wouldn't vote for them.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 17, 2026 12:38 AM (Vngxz)
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A Win's a Win
Timothy Birdnow
Or at least until the Iranians renege on the deal, which they will.
The Strait will be opened without tolls, the Iranians promise to not seek nuclear weapons, and the blockade is ended.
Hip hip hoorah! But it still depends on the Iranians doing what they say they will do - which is something they have never done before.
Still, the Iranians have been set way back in their quest for nukes and are now in a bad position to finance and arm terrorists around the globe. It wasn't a touchdown but a nice field goal win.
Sometimes that is the best you can get. Of course we'll be doing this again in ten, twenty years, but at least we have some breathing room.
Of course the Iranians will spin this as an American defeat, and the media will do likewise. I see Barack Obama is already criticizing it as a failure, as if anything he negotiated was anything but a failure.
It wasn't an absolute victory but was a victory nonetheless. To mix sports metaphors it was a win on points rather than a knockout. But a win's a win!
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:07 PM
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Don't worry, guys. Trump really does know what he's doing. Honestly! The only thing we have to worry about is the people who follow him into the Oval Office, especially if they are Donkeys.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 16, 2026 12:10 AM (Vngxz)
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If you believe a Pakistan generated headline I have several slightly used Pyramids for sale! Cheap!!!!!
Posted by: Mike at June 16, 2026 12:56 AM (+xDJP)
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Dana, I sure hope he DOES know what he is doing here, He usually does but that may not be true in this case. This is a bit out of his depth,
Not interested in a pyramid Mike but those Hanging Gardens things would sure look nice in my backyard...
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 16, 2026 08:48 AM (oflqW)
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California Scheming
Timothy Birdnow
Ashley Zavala
@ZavalaA
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Amid elections investigation, @USAttyEssayli says his office has found evidence of voter fraud in California.
Is his office investigating state/local government? Essayli could not say, per DOJ rules.
"Is this widespread fraud?... that's the question we're trying to answer"
It's systematic and clearly they have repeatedly stolen seats from Republicans over the years. But in times past there has been no appetite to pursue this - until now.
The Democrats had built a political machine and thought to hold eternal power. It's almost impossible to defeat a machine from the inside; you have to dismantle it from outside. That is what is happening now - and that is part of why the Democrats are so enraged by President Trump. He knows what they were doing and is trying to stop it.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:34 AM
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The Best We Can Get
Timothy Birdnow
The point this author misses is what Mr. Trump said a few days ago "America has no stomach for this".
Trump is right; we just don't have the balls to fight this war to it's logical end. It's a shame our people are so myopic because we need to finish the Mullahs; that would put an end to so much of the troubles in the Middle East. But Americans just don't want that fight because they would have to make some temporary sacrifices that aren't prepared to make.
Iran would not be Iraq. It would be much harder to invade with ground troops, but the people there are far more eager to embrace the end of their government than were the Iraqis, and a big problem we had was that Syria and Iran were aiding the insurrectionists. Iran would be alone in this - there would be no aid flowing from her Arab neighbors.
But it WOULD be much harder militarily. Iran sits on a high plateau, by and large, and is quite mountainous, easy to defend, which is why the Persians and the Parthians built great empires in the first place. They didn't have to worry overmuch about defense. Afghanistan taught us that mountain warfare is some of the hardest warfare possible and that would be true in Iran. But it would be fairly easy to set up a new government and we could even bring back the Shah to give it legitimacy. Still, it would be a tough slog.
But if we wrecked the infrastructure and took the islands in the Gulf the government would be very hard-pressed.
The problem is nobody has an appetite for this. We are going to let this historic opportunity slip by us.
The author states:
Any serious agreement after a military crisis requires discipline. Washington must know what it absolutely needs; what it can live with; and what it should not spend blood, money, political capital, and economic stability trying to obtain. The Trump administration, by contrast, has too often treated negotiations as another arena for pursuing objectives the war itself failed to deliver.
Perhaps but that is always the objective in post-war negotiations. We aren't demanding a unilateral surrender after all since we don't want to go the whole nine yards. We have to win at the table what we are unwilling to take on the field of battle.
I believe Trump is wrong in thinking he's going to get a good deal from the Iranians; they are people who believe in Taqqiya, holy lying, and they will restart their nuclear program in secret as soon as they are able. I suspect Trump knows it too but his options have always been limited and now, with the pressure of the midterms coming up, he has to cut his losses. At best he has to get a deal that gives the appearance of victory and prepare for round two down the road.
The author continues:
That is where the trap emerges. If America demands a perfect deal, the crisis stays alive, because no imperfect agreement looks sufficient. If it accepts a narrower deal, the administration must explain why the war was necessary only to return to limited diplomacy. And if it keeps striking while negotiating, diplomacy becomes the continuation of war by other means.
True enough but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Victory is a better thing but we are not in bad shape because we still have wiped out the Iranian navy, used up the majority of their missiles, and otherwise have disarmed them, and disorganized their internal workings by taking out so many of their leaders. If nothing else we bought precious time, quite a bit in all probability. Iran's nuclear ambitions are on hold for a while and they are going to find funding Hezbollah and other terrorist groups problematic for a while.
The President can capitalize on that and probably will. The problem is he has to get that message out over the din of the mainstream media who will call this a failure. Of course the mainstream media would have called the Revolution a failure after Bunker Hill, or called the Civil War lost after Bull Run.
The author also states:
This confusion has reached the American economy. The latest inflation numbers should be a warning to Washington: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the all-items index rose 4.2 percent over the 12 months ending in May, and energy accounted for more than sixty percent of the monthly increase.
While the BLS (rather reminiscent of Blsht, eh?) is charting rising prices it is wrong to call this inflation. Inflation is not rising prices so much as increasing money supply causing rising prices. They are actually different things and prices drop back down after an event driven spike caused by external events. It doesn't appear the author understands this (and probably not the folks at BLS either). Inflation is a monetary issue - not a pricing problem.
Actually this author is correct but not for the reasons he thinks. A part of this IS inflation, a good part of it, as the Federal Reserve has started a new round of Qualitative Easing,
pumping money into the economy in the last six months at an alarming rate.
As they economy had been doing quite well and did not require any "pump priming" one must conclude this is Jerome Powell's way of sticking the knife in Donald Trump's back and twisting. Powell is playing Nicholas Biddle to Trump's Andrew Jackson. Biddle tried to wreck the economy to influence the elections but Jackson won anyway and closed the Bank of the United States. Biddle did exactly what Powell is doing right now. Whether Trump can overcome this sneaky attack is another matter. At least he has the war to blame for the rising prices. But when the war is over and prices continue to rise...
At any rate I think it wrong to criticize Mr. Trump for his handling of this, although I think he should have gone after a lot more than he has militarily. It's clear the Mullahs have not learned their lesson and we should have made our point a bit more, uh, colorfully. But Mr. Trump has a keen grasp of the American mind and he understands what is possible. I trust him in many ways, and he knows what he is doing - I hope.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:00 AM
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Denaturalization
Timothy Birdnow
Ilhan Omar has to be sweating through her Burkha about now.
Omar got her brother in the country by claiming she was her husband and has committed a number of felonies since in all likelihood. She may wind up back in Moghadishu before long.
Frankly that's where she belongs.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:53 AM
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